A spectral color is a color that is evoked by a single wavelength of light in the visible spectrum, or by a relatively narrow band of wavelengths. Every wavelength of light is perceived as a spectral color, in a continuous spectrum; the colors of sufficiently close wavelengths are indistinguishable.
The spectrum is often divided up into named colors, though any division is somewhat arbitrary: the spectrum is continuous. Traditional colors include: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
The division used by Newton, in his color wheel, was Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet; a mnemonic for this order is Roy G. Biv. In modern divisions of the spectrum, indigo is often omitted as simply a tone of blue or violet.
Read more about Spectral Color: Non-spectral Colors
Famous quotes containing the words spectral and/or color:
“How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Actors work and slave—and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)